Adventures of an Aviatrix, in which a pilot travels the skies and the treacherous career path of Canadian commercial aviation, gaining knowledge and experience without losing her step, her licence, or her sense of humour.

Friday, September 03, 2010

On The Frontier

We get a call from the customers, still on the
edge of nowhere, waiting for both workable weather
and an airplane. Today the weather is starting to
clear, and they expect it will be good enough to
fly by this afternoon or tomorrow, so they're
desperate to get the airplane so they can take
advantage of the rare opportunity. Their cellphones
don't work there, and the one landline available at
whatever accommodations they are enduring is so
poor that they are almost unintelligible when they
call. Before the call is cut off, we understand
that they want us there asap, and this message is
underscored by numerous texts and calls from our
own company president. Yes, we will do what we can
to get there today as soon as possible! It's not
like we usually dally.

I help the mechanic while my coworker returns to
the hotel to reset his duty day, so we can still
fly tonight even if it takes us all day to finish
up. There also isn't that much left for an
unskilled person to do, until it's time to close
the cowls. I can crochet okay, but my lockwiring is
really abysmal.

I sit next door in the departure lounge for the
charter company and do paperwork and, when they
give me permission to use their wireless, e-mail.
The woman checking in the passengers is a licensed
A&P (American version of an AME), and a licensed commercial pilot. We could have used her next door for the
last couple of days! I ask her about her career
goals, and she wants to be a missionary pilot. I
think she's pretty much set. Strong faith: check.
Local church outreach experience: check. Can fly
airplane: check. Can fix it when it breaks down in
the bush: check. She has a tiny bit of flying left to do to complete her licences, because she somehow holds a multi-engine commercial licence without the corresponding single engine one, something that isn't even possible in Canada, because commercial is a licence and multi is a rating for us. That doesn't sound too hard or even too expensive to finish up. I'm sure she'll meet the missionary goal quickly, and I wonder what she'll do next.
This business might be a family run one too, so
maybe someday she'll come back here and take it
over.

At one point when she was talking about where
she had flown already for mission work, she held up
one hand in a thumbs down gesture, except with the
index finger extended as well as the thumb. Picture
the "loser!" gesture, but tilted so the thumb
pointed down. With her hand held this way she
tapped the back of her hand and the knuckle of her
index finger, and immediately I saw what she was
doing. That is a map of Alaska. The thumb is the
panhandle and the index finger the Aleutian
islands. It was so cool I immediately wondered what
other states or places might have indigenous
hand or other signals. I might have used my
vertical palm to represent one of the basically
rectangular western provinces, but it's not that
representative. Do Italians point their toes
slightly and tap parts of their foot and calf to
describe their travels? Do you have a gesture or
hand shape that represents your area? I need to
know these things.

Meanwhile there's someone at dispatch answering
radio calls. I'm not listening closely, and he's
kind of around the corner, but after a while I
realize that he's speaking in a Russian-English
pidgin. Things like "Skazhi him I'll be tooda
ootrom." This really shouldn't be news to me. It's
no different than a New Brunswick Acadien sentence
like "Je vais hanguper le telephone et callez-vous
back." It's normal for a linguistic border
with a history of occupation and regime change to
have a transition zone where both languages or a
combination are spoken. Why am I surprised here? I
think it is because it is the Americans, the same
people who take to the streets to fend off the
encroachment of Spanish. But of course they aren't
the same people. The United States is a huge and
diverse country and the more I travel in it the
more I am convinced that the only thing that unites
the whole is the legend of being Americans. This
isn't a criticism. If only every country composed
of such diverse parts could embrace its nationhood
so firmly that civil war was not on the menu.

I wonder now too at how many other borders is
there angst about the prevalence of the language
from the other side. Certainly Québec has fought
hard over the years to maintain its linguistic
identity in a sea of English. Do Finns freak out
about so much Swedish being spoken? Is there angst
in the Alsace Lorraine that there are people there
who live their lives in the language of their
ancestors, regardless of where the border happens
to be this century?

My coworker decides he's done resting and comes
back. We help recowl the airplane. I close up all
the inspection ports with no screws left over or
missing. There's nothing sitting on the wings, the
cowls are on properly and there's oil in the
engines. I go out to do a run up check. everything
checks out, so I ask for high speed taxi on the
runway and wear in the brakes according to the
package instructions before returning to the
hangar. There are no issues or oil leaks, but I
spot an open access panel under the horizontal
stabilizer I didn't notice before. I point it out
guiltily and muse that I didn't have any screws left
over. My coworker removed that one and he put the
screws on a nearby barrel. Another reason to use a
designated screw container, in my opinion. I finish
the walkaround and that appears to be the only
thing that was wrong.

We load everything back in the airplane, faster
this time--because we now know the best way to load
it, not because the clients aren't watching--and
secure it down. Wonderful, wonderful tie down rings.
But couldn't the stupid airplane manufacturer have
provided some tiedown points in the aft half of the
airplane? I mean, they expected us to put
stuff in the airplane, right?

We bid "do svidaniya," to our new friends and
takeoff, following ATC instruction out of PANC
terminal airspace (but the Americans don't call it
that, what do you call it, again?) and the weather
allows us to climb high enough to go through the
pass with no cloud dodging, just gradually climbing
and then descending through a hole on the other
side so we don't get stuck above a layer. It's
rugged and beautiful until we're clear of the first
range and then it becomes more rugged and bleak.
The terrain is crinkled and gray-green depending on
the rock to short-fuzzy-growing-stuff ratio. I
think I spot some caribou, but I was really hoping
to see some, so I may have allowed my mind to play
tricks on me. Canadian law doesn't permit
overflight of caribou below 2000' agl. I don't know
if US law is exactly the same, but if an animal
manages to make its living out here, year round,
I'm not going to make its life any harder, so I
couldn't get a close look anyway.

There's a VOR way out here in the boonies. I
keep forgetting its name, saying, "Begins in S. A
short sounding name, but it has a lot of letters in
it. Sparrevohn. I have the story of how it
got its name, but I'll tell that another day.
Sparrevohn is also a military aerodrome, so I'm
watching for it as a landmark. There's a kind of
knack you get for finding airports after a while.
You look at the lay of the land and there's a place
where an airport fits, both because the people who
sited the airport put it in a reasonable place, and
because subsequent land development has taken into
account the approach surfaces and noise areas. I
suggest that it will be in a flatter area ahead,
behind the second ridge.

I mentioned Sparrevohn to someone at the
barbecue last night as a possible emergency landing
site "if the emergency was bad enough to overwhelm
the fear of doing paperwork for an unauthorized
landing at a military aerodrome," but was told that
if I had an emergency I really didn't want
to land there. I didn't ask why, assuming that it
was a particularly paranoid base. But then I see
the aerodrome and now I see why you don't want to
attempt it in an emergency. For some reason,
perhaps old fashioned defensibility, or shelter
from wind for the base on the ground, it's tucked
in very closely between two ridges. We don't land
there.

Beyond Sparrevohn the terrain flattens out into
swamp again. We could tell from the sectional map
that it would, because the map is one low colour
with hundreds of little smooth edged lakes. Any
place like that that I have been has been swamp.
There are no trees. I think the vegetation below is
grass and lichen and maybe some bushes. We find the
destination airport and land, approaching over a
lake that has floatplanes moored at it. It's a fair
sized airport with a paved runway and paved
taxiways and apron, too. A foreboding sign suggests
that we needed prior arrangements to park here,
even though I called ahead to check on fuel and
such and was told there was plenty of parking.
There is plenty of space, and We find an
appropriate place to park, with the assistance of
the tower. We can't find a payphone, but the tower
volunteers to call for fuel for us, and the clients
turn up in two truck they've somehow managed to
procure. We unload everything, sorting it into what
they need now and what will go back to the hotel,
and then they take off in a chartered Beaver to do
reconnaissance.

We drive to our accommodations--I'll describe
them and town tomorrow--and unload. There will be
be no mission for us tonight, but we'll go early
tomorrow.

Oh and the person whose company I enjoyed so much in the air charter company next to the maintenance hangar? She's a regular reader and commenter who had previously e-mailed me a welcome to Alaska and invited me to come and talk to her if I happened to be one of the Canadians who had rented the next door hangar. At the time I received her e-mail I didn't know about the hangar plans, so told her it wasn't us. And then--this is the ridiculous part--I chatted with her face-to-face for hours and did not clue in that I already knew her in the virtual world until months later when she e-mailed me about something else and mentioned that she enjoyed meeting me. I was actually worried at the time that I might be annoying her with all my chatter. From this I conclude that (a) I am a champion scatterbrain and (b) Cockpit Conversation readers are simply fantastic people whom I am delighted to meet even when I don't know I'm meeting you. May there be many more.

24 comments:

I'm amazed by the mix of languages, too. Modern Australia has a very "speak English or stay at home" kind of attitude that I've always found grating. That said, we have a history of adapting foreign words into Australian English, too.I love these little examples of Russian American English, though.

Texans show it much like the alaska trick, except with the index finger pointed up (Map of Texas). Massachusetts residents (Bay Staters, to be technical) represent Cape Cod as a flexed arm (Map of Cape Cod), and San Francisco can be shown as your right thumb, with the golden gate bridge extending from the tip of your nail and the space between your thumb and the rest of your hand representing the bay: San Francisco map

Tyler (and Anonymous), those are awesome. I'm surprised this is the first time I've met any of these.

Unwise Owl: That's what you get for living on an island. You need some borders. But I understand that Australia does have a few healthy aboriginal languages in the Northern Territory and Torres Islands. I guess there's not much of a pidgin developing there, as there is such a status difference between the languages, and most speakers of the lower status language already have a good command of the higher status one.

Commercial is a license and Multi is a rating in the US as well. However, when you take your Comm, checkride, you only get commercial privileges in the class and category of the aircraft in which you took the checkride. If you take your commercial checkride in a multi engine airplane, you only have Comm privileges in Multi engine aircraft. You still only have private pilot privileges in single engine airplanes. (assuming you had a SE rating on your private certificate before you took the Comm Checkride)Along the same lines, I only hold ATP privileges for Multi engine airplanes. My other ratings are at the Comm level.

It is also entirely possible to do all of your training from hour one in a multi-engine airplane. Not necessarily advisable, but certainly possible.

A third way you might end up with a commercial pilot certificate without Comm SE privileges, is through the Military. In the US, Military pilots may be issueda civil pilot certificate on the basis of their military competency. Frequently this is a commercial pilot certificate with a multi engine rating only. Depending on your career and branch of service, you may have spent very little time in a single engine airplane. A friend of mine has only a very few hours in a t-41 (C-172) other than those few screening flights, his training began in the T-37, a twin engine jet.

In Canada when I got my licence you were required to demonstrate a spin and recovery on the private and commercial flight test, and I know of no multi-engine airplanes that are certified for spins. You were allowed to provide a separate airplane for the spin than for the rest of the ride, but at some point you would have to be able to fly the spin-capable aircraft. When I stopped instructing the spin was only on the commercial flight test, but the same logic applies.

Once you have a commercial licence in Canada you may fly commercially in any airplane your licence covers (seaplane/wheelplane single/multi) but you probably need a separate type rating, pilot proficiency check or company training. Likewise an instructor rating entitles you to instruct on anything you are qualified on, with certain minimum experience levels, such as 50 hours on seaplanes to give seaplane ratings, and ten hours on type to teach multi-ratings.

For example, my licence said "All single and multi-engine non-high performance land and sea aeroplanes" before I had ever flown a multi-engine seaplane. I did my multi rating on a wheel plane and my float rating on a single.

("High performance" means a different thing in Canada, which I found out when I laughed at an American who was doing his "high performance" rating in a C185. He was insulted, but I'm still laughing. High performance? On a good day you can get it off the water and over the trees).

We have more differences such as the night rating--automatically included in an American licence and the rare VFR-OTT rating.

Now someone explain me up the British IMC versus IFR rating again. That one boggles my mind every time.

(a) an aeroplane that is specified in the minimum flight crew document as requiring only one pilot and that has a maximum speed (Vne) of 250 KIAS or greater or a stall speed (Vso) of 80 KIAS or greater, or

(b) an amateur-built aeroplane that has a wing loading greater than that specified in section 549.103 of the Airworthiness Manual; (avion à hautes performances)

That is, it goes like a bat out of hell, has to be landed faster than most training airplanes can fly, or turns into kleenex in a steep turn. You can see why I laughed at the C185!

Oh and we don't have "logbook endorsements." You're not obliged to allow any messy-writing instructor to scrawl in your log book in Canada. The pilot keeps her own records, and if you are approved for a new rating, whether by experience, recommendation or flight test, you send in paperwork to Transport Canada. You used to get a new licence, but now you get a new sticker for your licence booklet. Ooh, stickers! They aren't sparkly though.

It's been a while, and I'm sure the rules have changed, but I recall that when I was initally licensed, and on subsequent BFRs, I simply flew with an instructor at night over some distance (BVY to PWM was popular here), landed, and returned. Then I was "signed off" for solo night flight. It was not automatic upon passing my PPL flight test.

Not quite a hand signal but nevertheless a linguistic and cultural link between the human body and a state: In Australia when you talk about a woman's "map of Tassie" you are referring to Tasmania and its similarity in shape to a woman's patch of pubic hair...

US requirements for PIC at night are a PPL or better ( light sport or recreational are day VFR only ) or student pilot solo, with instructor endorsement.

To carry passengers, you need 3 take-off and full stop landings at night within 30 days in the same category, class and type, if applicable.

There are no night licensing requirements ( other than a night dual x/c for the PPL ) and many private pilots just don't fly at night. In many ways this is wise, at least until the IR.

There are, of course, complications and exceptions.. in particular, one for commercial pilots without the instrument rating, who can only carry passengers within 50 miles of their departure point in the daytime.

UK IMC: The training for the Instrument Rating is very stringent and costly. Because of this, the UK CAA also issues the IMC Rating, which is a limited form of instrument rating which is a lot simpler to obtain. It allows flight in instrument meteorological conditions but only in certain classes of airspace and with restrictions on conditions for take-off and landing. This is a national rating, meaning it is not ordinarily recognised outside of the UK. (Wikipedia)I've seen "British VMC" defined as "pea soup but away from airways".

I am guessing the reason that Canada has night flying in a specific rating is similar in reason (Part 61.110) to Alaskans ability to get their private with the limitation of "night flying prohibited": Its really hard to find adequate darkness during the summer. One of my friends pulled an all-nighter just to get her night cross country in late August.

The next subpart gives exceptions to cross country requirements for pilots based on small islands.

With both of these cases, the regulation goes on to say that the pilot has a year to get the limitation lifted, or the pilots license becomes invalid.

According to this, I am guessing A squared got his license in Alaska during the summer. Did you just wait till fall to get the restriction lifted? Or am I wrong and you got your certificate under some other regulatory law?

I don't think Finns are very conserned about swedish speaking minority even though there of course are some quarrels (especially among young people) in the areas where there are a lot of both. What people are mostly complaining about that all Finns have to study Swedish for 3-5 years at school.

To me it's just pity that there are so few occasions where to use the language that I would have to make considerable effort to maintain my language skills.

Echo Juliet, yes, that's exactly what happened, I got my PPL in the summer in Alaska, when night conditions were pretty much non-existent, then got the required night training in November IIRC, to get the restriction removed.

The PPL training requires a certain amount of night training, and including a night cross country flight. As EchoJuliet said, there's a specific exemption for pilots in Alaska, in which case you have a night flying prohibition specifically listed on your certificate, but aside from that, if you hold a PPL, you are night qualified. I'm not sure what John is referring to but it's been that way for 25 years or so.

Canada requires five hours dual night, including I think it was two hours of cross country and five hours solo night, including ten takeoffs and landings, plus ten hours of instrument time. The instrument time can be by day or night, but any given hour can be recorded as instrument or night, not both. There's no flight test, but an instructor's recommendation is required, so if you're navigationally challenged you may need extra time.

Canada's night currency requires five night take-offs and landings in the last six months to fly with passengers.